Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

The Elementals were already focused on the Summons point of the new Wisps, and the spells converged quickly, more Elementals racing to melee with frost, fire, cold, and acidic energies to do battle.

Wisps blew apart, fell into vivus, the whiteness expanded along the edge of the Rift.

Four Wisps congealed out of nowhere.

Kris was off the beach and punching through the Shoreward effortlessly, the pursuing Elementals basically giving up at the water. They stared after her for a moment, then headed back to either Spawn points they’d taken over or to random wanderings.

There were thousands of them in view at this range, illusion wrecked during our last visit, scattered all over the fifty-some square miles of the island whose greenery they’d blasted down to black, charred stones. The Rift cutting diagonally between the two mountains was shining day and night, highlighting the bundles of glowing Elemental energies all over the place, but now, now things were going to change.

“Spotters, pick your targets!” Briggs said as he launched Endure. As the Mick advanced over the water, drawing the whole line of Disks, Wagon, and Barges forward with him, the Shoreward in front of us shattered, and the line of archers moved smoothly inside it to where we could shoot.

Kris flashed by us on the outside, going north. She had a mountain to climb and a position to reach.

The Spotters, Lord Mick included, lifted simple wooden Batons, each of them painted a different color, and each of them capped with a Continual Aural Fire effect drawn out in a long line before them.

The Spotters removed the projecting Caps, and pointed.

The Elementals along the beach lit up with flames that were black and white, the slightest trailing illumination following the path of the Baton to the chosen target, giving the archer squads their targets to focus down.

Six platoons of archers fired, and sparkling arrows trailing prismatic energies shot out, smashed into the Elementals, and tore them apart.

“Forward slow,” Briggs murmured, watching calmly, Endure now resting in front of him, and a Baton finding another Elemental with the white upper and black lower Aural Fires of his personal Baton. Upper/Lower, Lower/Upper, Right/Left, Left/Right, Checkerboard, and Swirls were the six patterns in use alternating black and white, each team knowing the target, with the goal of one volley, one kill on the Elementals.

I couldn’t even Sift for stuff the Elementals might drop right now for fear of the Harbinger, but that was merely annoying.

A second volley hissed out, and we advanced slowly into range of more targets, mowing them down smoothly, while I kept an eye on the middle of the island.

The middle, where things were rapidly starting to heat up, because the Wisps just kept on spawning, and I think were getting stronger, as Nightmare and Chaos varieties seemed to be popping in now.

Elementals were starting to converge on the site of the conflict, as it was making a tremendous ruckus and show as a whole lot of magic was going off… and Elementals were actually starting to die before all of the more fragile Wisps could be put down.

Amusingly enough, the two types of creatures could be largely immune to one another, with the Wisps almost impervious to fire and cold, and the Elementals likewise selectively immune to energies. But the Wisps also chain-Cast Drains and Heals and Harms, in addition to War Magic, not relying so much on coming to blows as the Elementals did.

It did wrap the Wisps up in a lot of Elementals, but it also made for a lot of point-blank magic coming from them, and for every Wisp that died, two more popped up to replace it.

The amount of War Magic at play over there was soon pretty ridiculous.

Then the first Elemental respawn pulled itself up out of the edge of the Rift, looked around, and raced for the excitement taking place over there.

The numbers of the Wisps were increasing far faster than the Elementals were, and so they couldn’t be contained. Enough War Magic and Harms converged, a section of Elementals were torn apart, and the Wisps spilled through the gap into open territory as more of them materialized and pushed the others through.

“We’ve got a Wisp breakout,” I reported, as the Mick strolled down the beach, the Elementals that came into range of us dying before letting off any spells. Their proc range was much less than their Casting range, and also much less than the range of the arrows coming in.

Wisps were starting to spread, more Elementals were starting to converge as they came into mutual range of one another, and the conflict was starting to spread all over this side of the island.

Dead Elementals were replaced one by one, dead Wisps replaced by two. The arms race was rapidly turning in the favor of the Wisps, even if they died much more easily than the Elementals did.

Nobody said anything, concentrating on killing as many Elementals to feed the conflict before the Wisps started spilling down this way and took away our Elemental targets… meaning it would be time to switch to them.

But that was still a ways off.

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The Wisp/Elemental fighting slowly snowballed, spreading out from the vivic epicenter which fed the whole thing. Elementals and Wisps died atop the vivus, were quickly replaced, and the fighting area spread, and spread, and spread, Wisps chasing Elementals, who converged on Wisps, and the air was thundering with the amount of non-stop Mana in use, blasting back and forth as creatures of Elemental energy and creatures of Psychic detritus coughed up by the Land blasted away at one another.

We watched it spread roughly equidistant in all directions, the untethered Wisps attracted to the brightly glowing Elementals and expanding the circle of conflict. Around the Rift itself, the fighting was murderous and non-stop, as Elementals and Wisps were spawning on top of one another and getting right to it instantly when they did so.

They all died, and us helping feed that conflict meant Karma was accruing steadily as we kept killing outlier Elementals, and the line of Wisps drew closer…

“Switching to Wisps!” Briggs ordered, as the first of the twisting, writhing spheres of negative Psychic energy started entering arrow range.

Two shots on target was enough to pop a Wisp. These were good Archers, keeping their Bows and Crossbows Infused for accuracy, Named and being fed a quiet stream of Karma over the past few weeks and months to improve their accuracy, range, and damage.

Three shots on target, and Wisps popped. They weren’t Vivified, as that would set up a Spawn Point almost on top of us, but they were replaced at the primary spawn site, contributing to the ongoing havoc there.

Incoming Wisps died with great speed, Spotter-fire dancing back and forth between their numbers constantly, drilled teams letting loose in split-volleys to pop them relentlessly, one after another.

The Elementals in the main area of conflict were basically dead now, but the fighting along the Rift itself was only increasing. The Wisps were spreading north and south towards those bright targets over there, our own area being surprisingly free of them for some strange reason or coincidence, dun dun dun...

That meant the Wisps were spreading all around us, but not behind us, largely north and south.

The big restriction on their spreading was the Rift itself, as they couldn’t pass it… and the only way around it was to circle the two mountains and make an end-run around them. But that was certainly going to happen, as the areas the Elementals were springing out of were widening, and the Wisps were chasing right along with them.

The Wisps would happily chase the Elementals right around the mountains… which would also take them UP the northern mountain towards Asheron’s Palace.

The Palace, where Kris had gone right up the slopes while the distracted Elementals stationed along the slopes were all looking south at the simply impossible-to-ignore conflict that was growing relentlessly there, even as the dark circle of Wisps was expanding over the landscape and sweeping the Elementals at the edge of it away, swirling darkness eating multi-colored points of light.

Us, we just kept shooting Wisps. Nice, cheap Karma, generated more Wisps to be killed by the Elementals over there on the massive line of ground stained so white it was already misting. If it would have stopped making new ones in front of us, we would have vivified the stuff out here, too.

Superior range and proc range was key here, and the fact they weren’t all coming directly at us since we weren’t all that showy compared to the Elementals.

Also, we were backing up as the crowds swelled in our directions, retreating to the periphery.

The first Stamina Potions were sucked down as hundreds of arrows and bolts fired took their toll even on superhuman muscles. There was crazy Karma being made as we fed the engine of conflict relentlessly, the Land obligingly vomited up as much internal corruption as it could… and the Elemental energy blazed and Burned it with the vivus.

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We watched it reach the on-ramp of the great circular path that revolved around Asheron’s Mountain three times, and the whole thing erupted in magic. The wave of Wisps down low continued north, circling around the northern end of the mountain even as the waves crashed relentlessly against the most powerful Elementals and coursed slowly up-slope, pushing and pushing with unthinking persistence.

That seemed to finally trigger the Harbinger watching all this, its Elementals clearly losing the fight between Summoned power and condensed Psychic crapola.

The abrupt jolt in the manafield was felt by everyone, magic flinching and swaying and momentarily pausing the regular volley fire that was mowing through dozens of Wisps per minute. The Wisps themselves shuddered and dimmed, even as the remaining Elementals seemed to flare with new light and strength.

We watched the first Meteors come down as flames, which was amusing, as the Wisps were going to be almost unaffected by them. Indeed, the spell fell into the masses of Wisps along the Rift and sent a bunch of them tumbling and scattering with its impact, but it didn’t actually kill anything, although the Meteors did leave a nice new white crater at the edge of the Rift.

The next set was vile Acidic green in nature, which was at least partially effective… and when that much damage was coming in, partial damage was enough.

So, we got to watch the heavens raining acidic fire, continually and awesomely.

“Back it up and rest,” Briggs murmured, and the Mick obligingly started Skating backwards quickly and smoothly, distancing us from the Wisps who had other things to worry about.

“Lass, if ye were Casting, that’d be coming down at us, aye?” the Mick called out, watching with everyone else as the rain of Meteors marched out from the middle of the island and towards the thick waves of Wisps boiling up the slopes towards Asheron’s Palace.

“Yes, and even faster,” I confirmed, earning some whistles from the careful men and women stretching out their shoulders and sipping at bright yellow glass vials carefully. None of them had ever gotten in such intense shooting anywhere, and this wasn’t a Dungeon grind. Every single dead Wisp was a Good Thing, more corruption dissipated and rid of.

The Wisps were going to win the battles, right up until they lost the war. At some point the Land was going to run out of local corruption, while the Elementals weren’t going to run out unless the planet died.

So the Wisps would ramp up, and up, and up, and then at some point they’d just stop, and the Elementals would start killing them all.

The only way to get rid of the Elementals was to Seal the Rift, and that wouldn’t happen until the Harbinger was gone.